Fall Colors

Always Be Creating. Always Be Focused.

They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. It’s a falsehood, based on a hole-filled theory (theory != fact) disproved many times through both scientific and practical methods. If you spend 10,000 hours performing a task ad nauseam you’ll have developed muscle memory, and if you’re unlucky, carpal tunnel syndrome—nothing more. You don’t become an expert by going through the motions until they become an easy habit, that’s not enough: you have to pay attention, and learn.

There’s no insta-filter that can take the place of doing the fucking work.

Becoming an expert is not a destination, to reluctantly use the cliché, but a journey. When it becomes easy, great: that’s progress. Now increase the difficulty and keep growing, because the moment you stop learning and put your mind on autopilot is the moment you’ve settled for “good enough.” Good enough isn’t creating. Good enough isn’t expert. Good enough is stagnation of worst form. I’m reminded of this as I sit here doing lat-pulldowns—not just mindlessly repeating—focusing on my precision and fluid motion. And trying not to let my mind wander to the enticingly obvious progress Dani has made with her own fitness routines, as she stretches out in one of her impossibly graceful, borderline-erotic stances across the gym…